


An Honorable Man

by silriven



Series: The Eastern Kingdoms Cycle [2]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alcohol, Comfort cooking and food, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, dark night of the soul, implied sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26814814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silriven/pseuds/silriven
Summary: Flynn receives a knock on his door late at night.  The knock is unexpected and also it is not.
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Series: The Eastern Kingdoms Cycle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975819
Comments: 22
Kudos: 61





	An Honorable Man

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to be a stand alone hurt/comfort Fairshaw one-shot, but, for a bit of added context, technically this is a missing scene from [The Temptation of Anduin Wrynn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025753/chapters/57805579) that takes place sometime after the events of Chapter 3 and the first scene with Shaw and Anduin in Chapter 5.

Lay yourself next to me  
You’ll be the stone and I will be the sea  


\- Johnny Cash

* * *

“Ten copper for the vegetables,” the old woman’s crow’s feet deepened at the corners of her eyes as she squinted. Her keen gaze was directed at the fine glass bottle sitting on the edge of the stall’s dirt-dusted countertop. “Two silver for the whiskey.”

“Two silver?” Flynn Fairwind’s shout echoed all the way up to the nearby rooves, stirring a pair of seagulls and drawing a few annoyed eyes from other market shoppers and shop keepers alike. “For a litre of _whiskey_?”

“For _good_ whiskey,” the woman retorted at half his volume but equal in pernacity, shaking a long, gnarled, brown finger at him as she tightened her crocheted shawl around her against the cooling afternoon breeze. “Local, from the Wright boys out near Virgil Hill. You know imports are hard to come by, right now.”

“Raising prices during a _blockade_ , though?” Flynn protested. “It’s highway robbery!” 

“It’s the free market in action!” the woman shouted. “Can you blame them? You know they’ve both got new mouths to feed! Marcus' wife gave birth to twins last month. Twins!”

Flynn puffed out his cheek and set free a long sigh of air through the corner of his mouth. He pulled open his coat and withdrew a leather coin purse from the inside pocket, which sat right next to his heart when the flaps were shut. He counted out more than the requested amount.

“For Marcus Wright’s new hungry little mouths,” he said, tapping the extra copper.

“Didn’t know you even liked whiskey,” the woman grumbled, sliding the coins one at a time off the edge of her end of the counter and into a beaded leather pouch.

Flynn shrugged, eyes pointed down as he scooped the tomato, garlic, and onion into a netted grocery bag. “Oh, you know, I just like to have some around. It’s useful for...cleaning wounds and...emergency...things...”

He looked up to find the old woman raising a brow at him. “That’s a mighty expensive emergency.”

“Oh, aye,” Flynn agreed, cinching the bag shut and swinging it over one broad shoulder. “Like I said...just like to have it around. Thank you kindly.”

The old woman shook her head, tucking strands of her frazzled, iron gray hair behind her ears before turning to begin packing away the remains of her stall. “Safe winds follow you.”

The ex-pirate struck out through the muddy street, nimbly dodging the worst of the muck while dragging his thick boots through clear puddles to wash off some of the dust. The sun was on its descent toward the horizon and Bridgeport market was packing itself up for the day underneath the harsh, orange-white glow. Vendors waved surplus items at wary patrons who were torn between making their way home and haggling for a last-minute deal. Flynn directed a lazy nod towards some people, ducked his head behind his thick sheepskin collar at the sight of others, but soon a relaxed slope eased into his shoulders as he crossed over the rickety plank bridge to one of Bridgeport’s many island neighborhoods, where his small one-room cabin sat precariously near the edge of a steep cliff overlooking a rocky beach. While unlocking the door, he kicked off his boots on the porch, letting them topple over each other next to a wicker rocking chair and stepped barefoot over the threshold.

The cabin had one room, but technically two floors. At the far end, a ladder gave access to a loft just big enough to hold a mattress and a trunk for storing clothes and other personal items that came in handy around a mattress. Closer to the door was a heavy iron wood stove next to a small counter with cabinets and a stout ice box that supported a large unlit, smoke-stained oil lamp. A round table and two chairs were pushed against the window opposite to the stove. The walls were bare and rough, but well-insulated and the roof only leaked in one small crack in the corner, under which there was a conveniently situated tin bucket. The cabin was even equipped with pipes which could be used to pump in cold running water on most days for the sink and the small tub in the corner. Flynn kept a marble in one of the potted plants on the windowsill which he sometimes used to measure the tilt of the warped floorboards to make sure that the cabin hadn’t tipped any further towards the cliff after a heavy rainstorm.

The ex-pirate set the groceries down on the wooden countertop and shrugged out of his coat, hanging it on a thick nail sticking out of the wall by the door. He flipped the switch on a small, gnomish radio sitting on the middle of the table next to a potted lavender plant and the tinny sounds of a Kul Tiran maritime band blared from the small speakers. Flynn whistled along to the melody as he made his way over to the tub and turned the faucet knobs to begin the flow of cold water, tapping a crudely carved rune on the side to activate the heating enchantment. While the basin filled, he fetched a bottle of beer from the ice box and opened every window in the cabin, letting in a salted cross-breeze that ruffled the mis-matched patterned curtains, one of which was clearly a shirt that had the seams ripped out and been re-sewn into more or less a crooked rectangle.

Once the tub was full, Flynn stripped down, throwing his clothes into the corner. A few tugs freed the band that tied back his ponytail, bushy brown hair spilling out over his thick shoulders. He tested the temperature with his toe before sliding in, beer and all, his whistling evolving into a relieved sigh. He set the bottle down on a small three-legged stool within arm’s reach, next to a small book with a torn cover and yellow, water-wrinkled pages, and picked up a bar of plain oatmeal-colored soap, lathering up every part of his body, a thick film of suds masking the various tattoos coloring his arms and chest. He ducked beneath the surface, hair darkening as it pooled around him in the water, and after he re-emerged, he foamed it up with a dollop of potent minty-smelling shampoo. He let it dangle over the back of the tub, dripping into an ever-growing puddle on the floorboards, as he eased back and reached for his beer and the book. He hummed to himself as he read and soaked, the beer gradually disappearing from the pine-colored glass bottle as the radio continued to play.

Once the bottle was empty, he stood up, ruffling his hair and dripping streams of water as he crossed over to the ladder and began to climb. In the loft, he fetched a towel from the trunk and dried off, slipping on a pair of loose dark green pants and an off-white cotton tunic. He left the front unlaced as he made his way back down the ladder, cursing quietly as he slipped on the second-to-last rung and hit the floorboards with more heft than he’d intended.

The sky was dark outside, the glow from distant houses and the city proper cast a strange light on the horizon. Flynn stood at the counter in the kitchen, towel-dried hair tied up in a messy bun, and slid a sharp knife from its wood-block holder, his whistling turning to singing as he started to chop up the onion, filling the small space with its sharp, fresh scent. The sound of the knife rocking against the cutting board drew a small shadow to the windowsill from the outside. Flynn glanced up, the flat of the blade shifting safely against his scarred, tattooed knuckles, and a small smile tugged the corner of his mustache up.

“Here, puss,” he cooed, pausing to give a few clicks with his tongue against his teeth. “Puss, puss, puss.”

The pair of green eyes continued to stare back, unimpressed, as the cat they belonged to rounded its spine, the faint orange stripes on its dark blond fur breaking as the soft fur spiked and parted. Her ears did perk, though, when he continued to string together kissing sounds, and her head swiveled at the sound of the ice box door opening and closing. When Flynn poured cold milk into a small saucer and set it down on the floor, she finally slunk into the cabin between the small forest of potted herbs on the dusty windowsill. She stretched her paws all the way out in front of her before settling in place, lowering her head to pull in laps from the white pool with her small pink tongue.

Flynn resumed his singing and finished with the onion, moving on to mince crescents from the garlic bulb. The recipe he had memorized called for three, but he always used six. He lit the burner beneath a ginormous cast iron skillet that had a permanent place on the stove top and heated up a generous amount of oil. When it crackled and the surface rippled from the heat, he tossed the chopped vegetables in, using a heavy wooden spoon to stir and distribute the pieces. It didn’t take long for the entire apartment to fill with the familiar smell of roasting onion and garlic.

He plucked a handful of parsley from one of the potted plants on the windowsill and with a few chops had a neat pile of the thin, feathery green leaves, taking care to keep the juices from the tomatoes away as he diced those as well. From the ice box again he fetched a bowl of scrubbed clean muscles he’d fetched and from the fishing buckets earlier that morning. One by one, he went through and debearded the live ones with deft practiced yanks on the thick sinewy string, tossing the dead ones into a bin at his feet. He added everything to the cast iron skillet with a generous amount of vinegar from a greasy jar in the cabinet. 

While the mixture set to simmer, he cleaned the cutting board, took a quick walk to toss the dead mussels back into the ocean, and returned to cut slices of crisp bread, baked fresh that morning. He was just about to butter a slice and pop it into his mouth when he heard a distinct series of light knocks, barely audible over the radio. The cat paused from her drinking to glance up at the door, which Flynn padded towards on bare feet.

On the other side stood a man dressed in a dark cloak, the hood pulled around his head in such an expert way that it obscured most of his features without appearing too obvious that he was doing so. He wore a plain charcoal grey tunic tucked into a worn pair of black breeches. His tired face looked back at Flynn from the shadows, pale even in the faint yellow glow from the lamplight within the cabin, shoulders slumped with the hunch in his posture.

“I apologize for not giving notice,” Mathias Shaw said, his voice quiet, green-eyed expression neutral and guarded. “Would you mind some company tonight?”

An easy smile spread across Flynn’s face and he stepped aside. Mathias stepped out of his well-worn, plain leather boots before he crossed the threshold, picking them up as he went and stacking them in a neat pile just inside the door, next to which he set down his traveling bag. He hung his cloak on a nail beside Flynn’s coat and crouched down to zip open the bag, pulling out a thin, brown towel which he tucked under his arm as he strode across the room, right to the tub. By the time Flynn finished locking the door, Mathias had already stripped down and was standing inside the basin, turning the knobs to activate the showerhead without bothering to wait for the heating element. Cold water streamed down his wiry frame and he began to methodically scour his skin with the bar of soap. 

Flynn snuck a glance while he checked the mussels, stirring the tomato and onion mixture with his spoon in the corner of his eye and enjoying the sight of freckles spread across the bare, bony shoulders and back. Not even five minutes later, the knobs squealed as the spymaster turned the water off again, using the towel to sop up water from his skin, still standing in the tub. Only after he had rubbed his red hair dry did he wrap the towel around his waist and step out, making his way up the ladder to the loft.

Flynn hummed along to the radio as he laid out a thick potholder more or less in the center of the small table, bringing the entire skillet off the now-unlit burner and setting it on top. Mathias came down, damp hair still standing on end, wearing a pair of his spare boxer-shaped small clothes and a plain cream-colored tunic with sleeves that came just past his elbows. He stood next to the table, his face softening as he watched Flynn set out two bowls and the loaf of bread.

“Smells delicious,” Mathias said, quietly.

“You picked a good night to drop by,” Flynn said over his shoulder as he brought the whiskey and a clean glass over to the table, setting it down next to a fresh beer. “Caught these unlucky little beauties first thing this morning.”

Mathias let out a short, low sound from the back of his throat, almost like a sigh and he sank down into one of the wooden chairs, reaching for the big flat spoon Flynn had left in the skillet. He scooped out his own portion of mussels, drizzling extra sauce on top, and handed the spoon to Flynn, then cut two slices of bread and slid one onto Flynn’s plate before buttering his own. Mathias took care to sop up a generous amount of the tomato juices before sinking his teeth into the soft, dripping bread. The whiskey on the table remained untouched.

“Having a rough time over in Stormwind, are you?” Flynn asked after a swig of beer.

Mathias grunted. “So you’ve noticed.”

The ex-pirate shrugged, exhaling through his nose. “A bit hard not to notice a naval blockade cutting off all imports and exports to us over here, yeah. Don’t suppose you know why the Proudmoores seem awfully tetchy as of late or why _Tiffin’s Melody_ is back over to roost on our side of the ocean?“

The spymaster remained silent as he worked on chewing the piece of bread in his mouth. Flynn nodded expectantly and offered him a dash of hot sauce from a small glass bottle, which Mathias accepted and stirred into his plate.

“Let’s talk about what you’ve been up to,” the spymaster suggested, once he finished swallowing.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Flynn caught Mathias’ eye and gave him a warm smirk. The ex-pirate felt a small pang of victory at the sight of the spymaster’s ears reddening, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a smirk under his red mustache.

Between the two of them, they cleaned out the skillet of every last morsel and polished off half the loaf of bread. Flynn scrubbed the dishes while Mathias sat and poured his first glass of golden whiskey for the night. The ex-pirate bent over the sink, wisps of brown hair falling forward, muttering a curse under his breath as he worked on scrubbing charred tomato remains and wisps of burnt garlic cemented to the bottom of the skillet. His scrubbing paused for a moment when he felt a pair of hands brush over opposite sides of his waist. Hot breath and a familiar bristling of a beard tickled the back of his neck, right below where his hair was pulled away into its bun.

Flynn laid the skillet to rest on the counter and turned around, hips pivoting in Mathias’ hands. He leaned in to accept the kiss the spymaster offered. It tasted of the Wright brothers’ good whiskey. Mathias pulled back a little sooner than he normally would, his green eyes as dark as they had been when he was standing outside on the porch.

“You look exhausted, mate,” Flynn said, bringing his hand up to take the spymaster’s chin in his calloused fingers, brushing his thumb across the patch of red beard.

“Not really,” Mathias replied, almost sighing. He leaned away, gaze flickering to the patch of sun-browned skin at the deep collar of Flynn’s shirt.

“All the same, let’s get you to bed, hm?” Flynn chased the spymaster’s hips with his hands, rocking them slightly when he found purchase on them again.

Mathias’ gaze traveled further out, to the dark window behind the kitchen counter. He nodded. Worry tinged the edges of Flynn’s ribs but when he gave the spymaster’s backside a playful swat, it earned him a reassuringly fierce glare.

With the lamps in the cabin doused and all of the lower doors and windows locked to the spymaster’s satisfaction, Flynn followed Mathias up the ladder into the loft to settle in the clean sheets on the mattress. Cupping his large hand under the other man’s jaw, Flynn leaned in for a deeper kiss, but pulled away in confusion at the stiffness of Mathias’ body against his. The injured look he couldn’t keep from crossing his face must have registered even in the darkness their light-exposed eyes were still adjusting to. He saw some of the tension drain from Mathias’ face, replaced by a look of almost mournful apology.

“I’m sorry,” the spymaster lifted his narrow shoulders. “...I think I might just be a bit tired, after all.”

Flynn brushed his thumb across the other man’s cheek, the freckles invisible in the dark. “What did I tell you.”

Mathias sighed, turning his head to the side. “I don’t mean to disappoint you.”

“Wouldn’t ever call the privilege of having you in my bed a _disappointment_ ,” Flynn smirked as he shifted onto his side, stretching his long limbs out as he sank into the thin pillows. “Both of us are usually a bit more excited in the morning anyways, yeah?”

The spymaster hummed in agreement as he rubbed his fingers over his closed eyes and lowered his wiry frame to nestle beside the other man’s. Flynn reached over and felt Mathias shift closer to him at his touch. The ex-pirate ran his large hands over the spymaster’s muscles, massaging the knots and smiling in the dark at the quiet sighs and small groans he heard until Mathias’ even breathing told him the other man had fallen into as deep of a sleep as spymasters ever got.

* * *

Flynn didn’t realize he had slipped into a light doze until he was jolted out of it by the end of a dream that was forgotten in the moment it took him to open his eyes. The patches of sky that could be seen through the loft’s windows were still very much enveloped in the thick dark night, but the mattress beside him was concerningly cold. He realized he was alone in bed and shot upright, looking down over the side of the loft into the room below. The panic in his chest abated at the sight of Mathias slumped at the table, a patch of moonlight falling across his red hair.

Flynn didn’t bother to try and be quiet as he got up and made his way down the ladder. The closer he got to the table, the more he realized that something was very wrong. He approached cautiously, hands tucked into the pockets of his sleep pants. Mathias was nursing a very tall glass of whiskey. The scent of it was strong in the air, carried by the faint salt breeze drifting in through the open window.

After a few moments of being ignored, Flynn cleared his throat.

“You’re starting to scare me a bit, mate,” the ex-pirate raised an apologetic brow. “What’s the matter?”

It was a while before the spymaster gave his response, but Flynn waited for it, patiently.

“Do you think that I’m a good man?”

Flynn’s chin jerked back in surprise. He tried to smirk through his growing unease as he shifted his weight from one hip to the other, rolling out his tense shoulders. “Of course. You’re a ramrod, straight-up good person, who’s just enough of a scoundrel on occasion for my taste…”

Mathias raised his hand to cover his entire face, his thumb and fingers massaging opposite temples. He remained there for some time, the tips of his fingers on his other hand trembling as they clutched the whiskey glass.

Flynn strode forward and knelt down, his knees hitting the floorboards between Mathias’ feet with a _thump_ that woke the cat, who was curled up on the seat of the other chair. Her eyes gleamed in the dark as she sleepily observed the pair.

“What’s this really about?” Flynn asked, reaching out to cup his fingers around the backs of the spymaster’s bare calves. “You starting to feel guilty for bedding an ex-criminal? Am I rubbing off too much on you?”

Mathias finally lowered his hand, running it down over his face so that it now cupped only the lower half, hiding his mouth. His brows furrowed together, deep lines creasing his brow, as he slightly shook his head back and forth. He didn’t look at Flynn. His green eyes were focused on the sight of the harbor through the window.

“I’ve done something...terrible…” he said from between his fingers, voice muffled by his palm.

In the silence that followed, Flynn traced circles over the tense muscles. “Comes with the job, though, doesn’t it? Can’t ensure the safety of a kingdom without cracking a knuckle or two every now and again?”

Mathias shook his head again, closing his eyes tight for a moment. His expression reset as he leaned back into the rickety chair, gaze dropping to look at the honey-gold liquid in his glass.

“No, this time…this time is different. What I did was wrong.”

Flynn cocked his head to the side, mouth pursed. He was starting to crave a taste of the alcohol in Mathias’ glass, but he kept his hands where they were. “Ah. So you just made a bad call?”

“No.”

Mathias worked at slowly turning the cup of whiskey around and around in place on the table as he spoke. His fingers raised and lowered the thick glass with small, weighted thuds on the old wood.

“I looked at every option. I followed each vector of risk to its conclusion. I estimated the extent of each possible socio-economic consequence. I weighed every single pro and con. I reached a conclusion that would not only strengthen SI:7’s political standing but also ensure the stability of both the kingdom and the majority of her people.”

His hand came to rest upon the table, knuckles whitening as his fingers tightened around the glass.

“And I acted upon it.”

Flynn raised both brows.

“...so...you did the right thing, then?” he suggested, gently.

“No,” Mathias’ harsh voice was a hair away from snapping. “I did the wrong thing.”

Flynn’s mouth closed shut, lips pressing into a thin line as he settled back on his heels, continuing to study the other man’s face. Mathias was refusing to look at him, gaze still distant and trained on the window as if he was eyeing a target on the other end of Freehold. In the light, he suddenly noticed that Mathias’ eyes were glassy.

“Hey, now,” Flynn rubbed his palms across the top of Mathias’ knee to mid thigh and back. “You’re only human, and we all make mistakes…”

“This wasn’t a _mistake_.” With a jerk, Mathias knocked Flynn’s hands away with his legs. “Every single action that I took was deliberate. Everything was meditated _far_ in advance.”

“And you think you’re the only man who’s ever strung his own noose to hang himself before?” Flynn curled his fingers into a loose fist and gently knocked the flat below his knuckles against Mathias’ knee.

The spymaster exhaled, a long, irritated sound. He put his face in his hands again, bony elbows digging into the tops of his thighs. His fingers tore up through his hair, pushing at the red strands. Flynn was so close now he could see traces of silver and grey in the moonlight.

“Well, I know the opinion of a former pirate can only mean so much, as far as matters of morality are concerned,” Flynn began, tracing the bones in Mathias’ leg from knee to ankle and back again. “But, for what it’s worth, I think you’re more than a good man. Good people only manage to avoid getting into trouble, something you can accomplish if you spend your whole life never leaving the house except to go to church on Sundays. Takes no effort or skill to do that. You, though, you do a hell of a lot for others and often get your hands dirty so that more innocent ones can stay clean. And when you see an injustice, you go out of your way to correct it. You’re an honorable man, Mattie.”

Mathias wrinkled his nose, his composure breaking for a brief moment. He started to lean back, turning his head to face away from Flynn and look at the window again.

“What’s done is done,” Flynn seized his chance and took Mathias’ smaller, narrow hands in his wide, warm ones, pulling them out between them. He brushed his thumbs through the lines in Mathias’ rough palms. “Best to just get your feelings out and go back to focusing on things you can control in the here and now.”

The spymaster said nothing. His hooded eyes gazed down at their entwined hands, as if he were studying them for creases to read and discern meaning from.

“You don’t need me blabbing on telling you how to do your job,” Flynn continued, gently. “And I’m sure with that mind you’ve got, you’ve already been thinking two or twenty steps ahead. But, is there anything you can do to make up for it?”

Mathias didn’t speak for a long time. He seemed to be sobering, the lids of his eyes raising. His thin fingers twitched and curled, returning Flynn’s grip with equal pressure.

“Yes,” he said, finally. “I have. And there is.”

Flynn nodded. “Right, sounds like it’s settled, then. Nothing more to worry about tonight.”

The ex-pirate slid his hands free to grip both of Mathias’ thighs from the outside, spreading them so he could work a trail of kisses from the knee inward. A not-too-terribly-annoyed grumble resounded from the spymaster’s throat as the ex-pirate nuzzled his face with great affection into his crotch, mouth murmuring pleased nonsense as his lips moved against the cloth. He made a meager effort to grip Flynn’s long brown hair and pull the other man’s head away. Flynn relented, face flushed and laughing to match the mirroring red crossing the spymaster’s pale face.

“Come back to bed with me, mate,” Flynn said, using Mathia’s knees as a ballast as he pushed himself into a standing position, offering his own palms once he was steady on his heels. “This isn’t the time of night to be agonizing over solutions to kingdom-sized problems, even for Her spies.”

Mathias accepted the help and slid his hands into Flynn’s. The ex-pirates arms steeled as Mathias pulled himself up off the chair with a grunt, the rocking and swaying on his ankles as he struggled to find his balance exposing his intoxication levels. Flynn helped him to the ladder and spotted him as he made his way up, but Mathias’ hand-grips and steps on the rungs were sure and he managed to crawl on his hands and knees over to the mattress. He seemed to be half-asleep, even before his red hair hit the pillow. By the time Flynn joined him, his breathing had already steadied and his eyelids were fluttering with the uncertainty of a dream. Flynn watched him sleep, lightly resting his hand on the other man’s bare lower back, thumb running over the grooves of an old scar.

* * *

The morning sun hadn’t yet broken over the horizon, but Flynn and Mathias were up and awake, the bedsheets in the loft left in a tangled pile along with coils of soft rope. Mathias soaked in tub, listening to the radio and reading from Flynn’s wrinkled book of poems while the ex-pirate brewed coffee and heated up the cast-iron skillet to toast slices of yesterday’s bread with leftover scraps of tomato, garlic, and oil drizzled on top. He brought a mug over to Mathias and leaned in for a kiss when he handed it to him.

After they’d finished eating, Mathias dressed in his discreet traveling clothes, starting with slipping on the dark charcoal tunic. The collar ruffled his hair as his head slid through, making the back stand on end and his bangs fall over his brow.

“It may be a while before I’m able to visit again,” Mathias’ tone was distant, matter-of-fact as he worked to pull the laces of his breeches taught against his hips. “Until this business is over. I almost didn’t manage it this time.”

“Hmm, not surprised,” Flynn said over his second cup of coffee as he stared out over the harbor. The blue and gold smudge of an ominous sail sat silhouetted by the pre-risen sun on the dark ocean horizon. “You gonna be alright by yourself on the mainland, without me to watch out for you?”

Mathias didn’t answer, but a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he met the pirate’s gaze, rolling up the crisp sleeves of his tunic to expose the freckles sprinkling his forearms.

“Maybe you should take her with you,” Flynn dipped his chin towards the cat, watching them from the top of the kitchen table. “You know. For company.”

Mathias hummed as he turned to meet the cat’s gaze, folding his arms over his chest. Flynn slid up against him from behind, wrapping one long arm around his waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. Flynn murmured a line from the song playing on the radio, one he clearly knew quite well.

“Gets a bit lonely in that office of yours, I’m sure. And she’s got a decent head on her shoulders; could probably help you bounce some ideas for solving your little problem. Or at least catch a mouse or two.”

Mathias grunted. He spent a moment enjoying the heat and the weight of Flynn, pressed against his back and hugging his chest. He lowered his arms to fold them across the other man’s arm, clasping his hand more tightly to his frame. “...we do have an abundance of rats.”

Flynn turned his head and lay a kiss on the side of Mathias’ neck, where there was a small bruised bite mark, conveniently positioned so that it would be just hidden by the tall neck of the standard SI:7 uniform. “Well, that’s settled, then.”

With the remnants of the bread carefully wrapped in a checkered cloth napkin tucked into his cloak pocket and the cat dejectedly peering out from the gaps in a carrier, Mathias gave one last nod from within the shadow of his hood. He struck out over the trail that would take him over the bridge, from the island neighborhood to Bridgeport, as the first traces of sunlight began to slip out over the ocean. Flynn sank into the rocker with his mug and kicked his feet up so that they rested on the porch railing. He rocked and hummed to himself, watching the dark shape until it was lost in the shadows of the distant town.


End file.
